A thought on the Jedi…

[Alcuin]

…and it’s not a nice thought.

Anakin Skywalker is discovered “by accident” outside the Republic boundaries. He and his mother have been enslaved, apparently since Anakin’s birth, but I’m not a sufficiently expert Star Wars aficionado to confirm that, nor do I understand how anyone would “prove” such an assertion since there are outside the movies various plotlines offered by different authors, most of whom have been “de-institutionalized”, if I may use that term, by Disney since they purchased the rights from George Lucas. But I digress, as usual.

Young Skywalker puts Queen Amidala and her retinue and Jedi guardians back into space so that she (or her double) can personally appeal to the Senate for the succor of her people. The queen and her party lack funds to escape from Tatooine, but through his unmatched piloting skills, a very young Skywalker provides this, and through the wiles of Qui-Gon Jinn playing upon the avarice of Watto, he is freed from slavery. Watto, however, has refused to release Anakin’s mother, who is left behind. The young boy is deeply torn as she blesses him and sends him away.

On Coruscant Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Kenobi present him to the Jedi Council who test the boy’s abilities. They are impressed. Eventually they ask him about his mother, suggesting that he misses her and fears to lose her. While Yoda’s reply, “See through you, we can,” is delivered gently, is he not gently threatening the boy, as might a strict but outwardly kindly disciplinarian. Anakin angrily retorts, “What’s that got to do with anything?” showing that he is wiser than his years, challenging these creatures how they dared find this unexpected or unusual - it would have been most unusual were it not so - and demanding to know what difference it made to his unquestionably remarkable skills. Were he not a boy, Yoda’s little platitude about fear, anger, and suffering would be insufferable patronizing. They contemptuously dismiss him as “too old”.

Off go Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan with the rejected and dejected Anakin in tow, following Amidala on what surely appears a Quixotic quest to wrest control of her native world. Everything goes wrong: their little space fleet cannot breach the shielding on the enemy warships, their Gungan allies are quickly defeated with devastating loss, Amidala is captured, Qui-Gon is outwitted and killed, and Obi-Wan is literally hanging precariously for dear life. Meanwhile, the fearless little kid flies to the enemy flagship, into its main hanger, accidently but fortuitously destroys the main reactor, and leads the now-victorious survivors of Naboo’s elite royal pilots, who were little more than spectators to Anakin’s near-single-handed victory over the Trade Federation, back to the capital.

The Jedi Council at last concedes that Skywalker is a worthy student despite the vigorous disputations of Yoda.

The Jedi are a bunch of hypocrites. Look, all human beings are hypocrites - me, you, and everyone who ever lived but was never able or never bothered to read this screed - and the only one of us who wasn’t a hypocrite was judicially murdered for his unadulterated honesty. But the Jedi hold themselves out to be in control of their fear, selfless, without pride (or at least in control of it) or bias.

Horse hockey!

After the Council interview, Obi-Wan tells his master Qui-Gon, “The boy is dangerous ... they all sense it.” Plainly put, the Jedi Council is afraid of Anakin. They accept him only after he saves their lousy butts not once but twice, and Qui-Gon, whom they refuse a seat on the Council, is killed because of their ineptitude by refusing to admit he’s encountered a Sith. They are fiercely proud and arrogant. It is not explained (in the movies) why the Council has finally agreed to train Anakin: it might be a belated admission of his raw talent and skill; perhaps they fear that, with another Sith surely on the loose, the Sith might discover and train him themselves; it might be the publicity about the boy that outdid the Jedi; and it could be due in part to infernally brilliant manipulation by the new Chancellor Palpatine. Nevertheless, for a group in control of whatever fear they have, Yoda says, “The Chosen One the boy may be; nevertheless, grave danger I fear in his training.” As Yoda himself said, “Fear is the path to the dark side ... fear leads to anger ... anger leads to hate ... hate leads to suffering.” Well, you nailed it, my little green friend.

Now before I continue my little rant, I want to point out that the solution to Anakin’s fear about his mother is very simple. The Jedi are stinking rich. And if they don’t want to dip into their own vast accumulation of mammon, the whole civilized galaxy owes them favors upon which they can call, wealthy people who would help merely to be associated with them. Send someone back to Tatooine and get the boy’s mother! Buy her freedom! I mean, here are a whole slew of genius warriors afraid of this boy who just happens - for every good and natural reason! - to miss and fear for his mother. Jedi are masters not so much of fantastic telekinetic and lightsaber skills, but of outwitting their opponents. Who wants to play chess with a Jedi? White to make his third move - whoop! checkmate in thirty-four. Are they stupid? greedy? don’t understand basic human emotions because they were snatched while suckling at their mothers’ breasts? How much grief might they have saved themselves and everyone else had someone had the decency to say, “You know, Queen Amidala, Anakin saved your planet of Naboo. Might your government and people find it in their hearts to free Shmi from servile bondage and settle her somewhere on your planet?” And the wicked and ungrateful people and government of Naboo respond, Heck no, leave the old biddy to her fate? How likely is that? Look, if that’s what happened, everybody in that galaxy far, far away deserves Darth Vader.

The Jedi enjoy an exalted status: It seems no one has legal standing to question the actions of a Jedi. Maybe its because tribunals, juries, and grand juries are susceptible to Jedi mind tricks; maybe they don’t know how to build or use lightsabers; maybe judges and plaintiff attorneys don’t like being force-choked; but it sure seems no one can effectively complain. Wrecked your speeder because some Jedi nearly hit it while hanging onto a flying droid after catching it after jumping through the plate-glass penthouse window of a 200-floor luxury apartment? Slammed into the wall because the senior Jedi of a duo ordered his more skilled subordinate to fly the wrong way through a busy tunnel against the subordinate’s better judgment? Tough noogies! Jedi business: go back to your drinks. No wonder some in the Senate were willing to let Palpatine reign them in.

Again, to return to Jedi and their mind games - they were supremely arrogant. Dooku and Sidious easily outsmarted them on Geonosis. Obi-Wan thought they had won the war against the drone army and the Geonosians: Yoda knew otherwise: the Sith had begun a war they had long prepared in order to quickly and efficiently reduce the number of Jedi they had to face, beginning with horrific losses on Geonosis itself. “The war has begun,” Dooku reported to Sidious, who replied, “Everything is going as planned.” The Jedi saw this arrogance in other individual Jedi, but not in the Jedi Order as whole. Obi-Wan saw it in Anakin; Yoda saw it even in Jedi masters - “A flaw more and more common among Jedi. Too sure of themselves they are. Even the older, more experienced ones,” he chided Kenobi, but more as a dig than a realization that arrogance had settled into the Order as a whole - but none of them imagined that their sworn enemies, the Sith, would discover, then use that arrogance against them, psychological jujitsu. Black to make his second move - oops! checkmate in thirty-two.

If you have ever seen the BBC Series World at War, the third episode is titled “France Falls”. About three minutes into in the episode, General André Beaufre of the French High Command says of the psychological status of the French people and government,

It was a very, very deep decay, probably caused by the excessive effort during the First World War. We suffered from an illness which is not peculiar to the French, the illness of having been victorious and believing that we were right and very clever. A victory is a very dangerous opportunity.

He said that with great modesty, and I note with trepidation that it might well be said of a good many other great nations and their armies even today.

So blind are the Jedi at this point that they cannot see (or choose to ignore) the emotional attachment between Anakin and Amidala. Obi-Wan sees it, but … Windu and the others ignore him. You know, I don’t really blame the Jedi for their inability to sense their surroundings: that’s the work of the Sith, who have clouded their vision. But to ignore Anakin’s closest associate (well, Obi-Wan was Anakin’s closest associate as far as the Council knew … Amidala was manifestly closer) was either a distraction-driven oversight of massive proportions or - arrogance.

When Mace Windu ordered Anakin to stay in the Council chamber while he dealt with Palpatine, maybe Anakin should have done that. But consider: Windu and the Council were more concerned with preserving the Jedi Order than the Republic government. They were unquestionably planning a coup. From the script (which does not quite match the dialogue in the movie):

MACE WINDU: I sense a plot to destroy the Jedi. The dark side of the Force surrounds the Chancellor.

KI-ADI-MUNDI: If he does not give up his emergency powers after the destruction of Grievous, then he should be removed from
office.

MACE WINDU: That could be a dangerous move ... the Jedi Council would have to take control of the Senate in order to secure a peaceful transition …

KI-ADI-MUNDI: … and replace the Congress with Senators who are not filled with greed and corruption.

YODA: To a dark place this line of thought will carry us. Hmmmmm. … great care we must take.

Gee, that sounds awfully familiar! That script reads just like the front pages of American newspapers these days. That, my friends and fellow ’Mooters, is called a coup d’état. And that scene is followed immediately by,

ANAKIN: You’re the Sith Lord! … I’m going to turn you over to the Jedi Council.

PALPATINE: Of course you should. But you're not sure of their intentions, are you?

And Anakin cannot be certain of the intentions of the Jedi Council. They asked him to spy on his friend and mentor, the Chancellor. Now remember that Anakin has no father and - thanks to the thoughtless, callous, heartless Jedi - no mother. If Obi-Wan is a foster father, Palpatine has been a foster grandfather, apparently a sometimes-doting grandfather; and who doesn’t love his grandfather, particularly when he gives you insights your father doesn’t or won’t, and spoils you a little along the way?

OBI-WAN: (takes a deep breath) The Council wants you to report on all of the Chancellor’s dealings. They want to know what he’s up to.

ANAKIN: They want me to spy on the Chancellor? That’s treason!

OBI-WAN: We are at war, Anakin. The Jedi Council is sworn to uphold the principles of the Republic, even if the Chancellor does not.

ANAKIN: Why didn’t the Council give me this assignment when we were in session?

OBI-WAN: This assignment is not to be on record. The Council asked me to approach you on this personally.

ANAKIN: The Chancellor is not a bad man, Obi-Wan. He befriended me. He’s watched out for me ever since I arrived here.

OBI-WAN: That is why you must help us, Anakin. Our allegiance is to the Senate, not to its leader who has managed to stay in office long after his term has expired.

Yeah, yeah. It’s that same Senate that Ki-Adi-Mundi is going to purge and replace with Senators of the Jedi Council’s own choosing.

Then there’s this over-arching, deeply troubling philosophy: “So what I have told you was true ... from a certain point of view.” Yep. Objective Truth is a lie. Perhaps you’d like to call it “an illusion”. That sounds nicer, doesn’t it? But an illusion is a lie, at least from a certain point of view, n’est pas? And if you know what you’re telling isn’t true, but you’re telling it to deceive and manipulate someone else to work your will, particularly because you are concerned they might not do what you really, really want them to do if you actually told them THE TRUTH, I don’t know about you, but - I think that’s lying.

Look, I’m not defending the Sith. Any Sith, just by himself, is a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Mos Eisley the spaceport. I’m very happy they’re not real, and as much as I enjoy Star Wars, I don’t want to live in that world. I’m not looking forward to living in this world with artificial intelligence linked to weapons systems, and I sincerely hope that I - and you - manage by the Grace of God to survive what’s coming.

When Palpatine tells Anakin, “The Sith and the Jedi are similar in almost every way, including their quest for greater power,” it sure looks like an accurate statement. Is it true? At least until you weigh intentions, it is; but that’s kind of like saying that thieves and banks both want you to give them your money. And unfortunately there are occasionally more parallels between thieves and banks and Sith and Jedi that we might like. When Darth Vader tells Obi-Wan, “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil,” I think he’s wrong; but if he’d said instead, “From my point of view, the Jedi are a bunch of self-interested hypocrites,” I think he’d have hit the nail on the head. But then, I guess that could be said of us all. Right?

While the Jedi are the Good Guys in Star Wars, they’re not very honest. They are, as an organization, downright dishonest and selfish. They also planned a coup, not first and foremost to preserve the Republic, but to save their own butts; if the Republic happened to survive, more or less, that was a plus, too. And to tell you truth, I’m very happy Jedi are not real, either.

I hope.